“Money is irrelevant, madam.”
She closed her hand. “Then why do you charge so much?”
“Meeriuge Effus’ettu has a reputation to uphold, and you are startling the other guests.”
“What? I sent their food back to them.”
A bit of eggplant fell off of the owner’s nose.
“Well, except that one.”
“Setsuna held her ground. “I am here for a romantic couple’s cozette with my fiancé, and I’m not going anywhere until I get it.”
“Will you please stop calling me that?” Privet insisted.
Dwale withered as he looked around. Every eye in the room was looking at them hatefully. “This feels like back home.”
The owner picked a piece of confit from his tuxedo. “Madam, if you will not cooperate, then I shall be forced to call the constabulary.”
Privet covered his face. “This is the third place we’ve been kicked out of.”
Seeing his frustration, Setsuna relented. “All right, all right, we’ll leave.”
Privet looked up. “What, really?”
Setsuna closed her eyes. “I can be reasonable.”
The owner nodded. “That is wise.”
Defiantly, Setsuna scooted her chair back to get up, but it collided with the tip of the owner’s shiny shoes.
“May I have a little more room please?” she asked.
“Of course, madam.”
The owner took a full step back, then found himself standing atop a dry arid mesa, desert dunes rising up around him as far as the eye could see.
“Wha…what is this?!”
Back in the restaurant, Setsuna laughed as she waved her hand, snapping shut the gate the owner had just stepped through.
Dozens of people called for their checks. A few people threw some money on the table and made for the exit.
“Where did he go?” The waiter asked worriedly.
Setsuna’s green eyes narrowed. “You want to join him, or do you want to bring me the desserts I ordered?”
The waiter looked around, sweat dripping down his face.
“I’ll start with your cheesecake.”
She winked. “Good man.”
As the waiter scrambled off, Setsuna took a deep gulp of wine from the flute, very pleased with herself. When she finished, she found Privet and Dwale staring at her.
“What? They were going to throw us out.”
“Where did you send him?” Privet asked.
Setsuna set her flute down and then grabbed the bottle itself out of the chiller. “Don’t worry, he’ll be fine…”
She threw her head back and took a long draught.
“…probably.”
“Probably?” Privet repeated, his jaw hanging open.
Dwale covered his mouth as he began chuckling. The chuckling grew into laughter, which them grew into a deep belly laugh. Finally he laughed so hard he had to wrap his arms around his sore sides.
It was such a clear, honest laugh, Privet and Setsuna could not help but join in. All three of them laughed, even as their terrified waiter returned with armfuls of desserts, assuring them that any they did not approve of would be on the house.
Dwale took a bite of Velours D’Abricot and found it to be the greatest thing he had ever tasted. Setsuna like the Figue En Robe, but found it didn’t really shine unless she mixed it in with the Borneo Vacherin, the combination of which she pronounced as being fit for Ramma herself. Privet contented himself with a Mirabell mint sorbet, as he watched Setsuna, a curious little smile on his lips.
Setsuna and I got off on the wrong foot, so much so that I really didn’t see it until just this moment. She’s fun, she’s headstrong, she radiates confidence, she’s generous, she’s loud. She acknowledges no one’s rules except her own. She insists on having fun at all times. She’s so full of life it boils over into everything she does. She’s everything Athel used to be, everything that attracted me to her, everything that she lost.
Privet held up his fork, but did not take a bite. I feel like I could really fall for this person. But am I attracted to Setsuna, or am I just attracted to how much she reminds me of Athel?
“Oh, I don’t think I have ever laughed that hard in my life,” Dwale mentioned once he had finally calmed himself down. He took a second to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye. My matron would have had a fit if she saw me laughing like that.”
Setsuna leaned back and kicked her feet up onto the table, a hole in her stockings allowing her painted big toe to poke through. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that. You’re a free man, now.”
Dwale took another bite and stared off out the window. The sounds of patrons fleeing the restaurant had mostly died down by now.
“Free.” He said the word as if rolling it about, trying to decide what it meant.
Setsuna snapped her fingers and a wine bottle from an abandoned table dropped down a portal and exited into her waiting hand. “You do know the word, right?”
“Yes, of course, it’s just that…I’ve spent my whole life in service of the woman who owned me. Now that I am free, I…I can’t actually think of what I would want to do with my time.”
Privet finally spoke up and gave him a strong pat on the shoulder. “You spend it with the people who care for you.”
“AYE!” Setsuna cheered, holding the bottle up over her head, spilling some. “A toast to that!”
“Aye, a toast,” Privet agreed, holding up his glass.
Setsuna stood up, getting a little tipsy. “To people you spend time with because yadda yadda!”
“To yadda yadda!” Privet and Dwale cheered.
They tapped their glasses together just as the waiter arrived with their meal.
As the others tore into their meals, Privet found his mind and heart filling with questions. Despite convincing himself that this trip was going to be miserable, he really was having a splendidly good time. The last time he could recall having this much fun was back when he and Athel used to spar together. The old Athel, the one that loved him, the one he was so attracted to he could barely stand it, but who he rejected out of fear. Now, that girl was gone, perhaps forever, and all Privet could do was regret over what might have been.
Privet looked up and watched as Setsuna tried to teach Dwale how to sing a salty old pirate song. Watching the two of them sway back and forth, singing so loud in Senndaisian that the few people left in the restaurant plugged their ears, he could not help but smile.
And again, here I am, with a beautiful vibrant young woman offering her heart to me, and I am hesitating. Is this to be the story of my life? To make the same mistakes over and over again? Do I learn nothing? Am I to make the same blunder with Setsuna that I made with Athel? Am I to decline her offer for love and companionship until it is too late? By the seas, what is wrong with me? How broken inside do I have to be to not instantly accept her offer?
Privet took another bite, but tasted nothing.
How many young men go through their whole lives and never once have the chance I have, and here I am, threatening to screw up my second chance after it is given to me. I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve any of this. I should be thanking the gods from the bottom of my heart, not moping about in indecision.
…Or would I spend the rest of my life wishing I was with Athel instead?
Setsuna and Dwale finished the song. The boy really did have a marvelous singing voice. She couldn’t recall ever hearing “Old Boots” sound so good before. He practically made a drinking song sound beautiful, and that was a real feat.
Tossing aside her second bottle, Setsuna noticed that Privet had pulled out his navigational charts again, and was busy making some calculations.
“Whacha’ got there?” she asked sleepily, trying not to slur.
“Oh, you know, just practicing my
calligraphy.”
She crinkled her nose. “Calligraphy?”
“I am a man, after all.”
“No, I mean this,” she said, tapping the island of Lahiti with two manicured fingernails. “You drew waterfalls all over it.”
“Oh, that,” Privet said, looking out the window. “That’s just somewhere Athel wanted to go once, but never got to.”
Setsuna blinked with heavy eyelids, then her temper flared up. She reached over and gave Privet a slap right across the cheek.
“What the heck was that?” he blurted out in surprise.
“Last night I had a dream where you cheated on me.”
Privet blinked. “What?”
She balled her fists. “Now apologize!”
“Are you crazy? Um, whatever, fine, I’m sorry.”
“That wasn’t a sincere apology!”
Dwale looked up from his plate. “How can he apologize sincerely for something that didn’t happen? You said it was a dream.”
She pointed an accusing finger at Privet. “He could have at least tried!”
“But, you two aren’t even together, it is impossible for him to cheat on you.”
“That’s why he has to apologize, it’s a double negative!”
Privet threw up his arms. “That’s not even what a double negative means!”
Setsuna slammed her fists down on the table. “I’ll be in my room back on the ship.”
And with that, she grabbed a bottle and vanished, leaving a very stunned and confused pair of brothers sitting at the table.
“She forgot to pay for dinner,” Dwale noted.
* * *
Back on the ship, Setsuna grabbed her dresser and tipped it over. “I’m such an idiot! Ahhhh! What is wrong with me?”
She smacked herself on the side of the head. “I’m so close to having him. I can feel it. And here I am screwing it up! She braced herself in front of her wall mirror. Her hair was tussled, her cute outfit wrinkled, her eyes wild. She had forgotten her boots under the table back at the restaurant. She looked like a crazy, drunken mess.
She was a crazy drunken mess.
“I promised myself I wasn’t going to be this way anymore!”
She pulled on her pigtails and began pacing back and forth. “I don’t want to be the crazy jealous girlfriend anymore. He’ll never go for that. Who would? A masochist, perhaps, but not an awesome guy like him. No, the first foreigner to best a Gatemaster in centuries doesn’t want a bat-poop crazy moss head. I’ve got to control it. But, every time I see him thinking about Athel, I just go crazy! I try to hide it, I try to bury it, but it’s still there. Ah, I’m such an idiot! I need to get a grip or I’m going to lose him.”
She picked up the bottle from the restaurant and tossed it into her wastebin. “Okay, no more grog, not until after the wedding band is on his finger. I need my wits about me. I can’t afford any more mistakes. Just one more big push, and he’ll give himself to me. I know it. My womanly instincts are never wrong about this kind of thing. I need something huge, something that will really impress him, something that will rock his boat from keel to sail.”
She stopped in her tracks and smiled impishly. “I have just the thing.”
* * *
“Ii’ilaikara!” Captain Tallia swore, tearing away the ii’ainta sign that had been staked to her mother’s tree.
“That makes thirty-two trees in all,” Nikki reported sadly.
Despite her unwavering mask of regal determination, Queen Forsythia had a sickly pallor about her as she stood before the dying tree. “Whoever is doing this is getting more bold,” she said firmly.
“That’s seven trees in all just from last night.”
The Queen nodded. “This is escalating.”
“And what about the Buleans, eh?” Captain Tallia spat as she turned around. “What good is their magic if it offers us no answers?”
Everyone present turned to the pair of men in alliance uniforms rocking their glowing clay vessel from side to side, ready to accuse them.
“Do you have anything?” Nikki asked hopefully.
Joron reached up with his long, orangutan-like arms and scratched underneath his hairy chin, releasing a sprinkling of dried skin flakes. “Patience, Colonel. Scrying is art, not math. The Goddess will show us the truth of what happened here in her own time.”
“Like after breakfast,” Yuvik chuckled, peeling an orange with his toes and tossing a slice into his mouth.
The bowl flickered and Joron dumped out the contents. Bits of bone with symbols carved into them, dyed pebbles, grains of sand, and a couple of discarded candy wrappers spread out on the living wood before them.
“Who put these in here?” Joron hooted, snatching the wrappers up with his fingered foot. “This is not a wastebin!”
“Sorry, that was me,” Yuvik apologized.
“This is a waste of time,” Captain Tallia complained. “If we had locked all the foreigners in the caves like I suggested, then Balsa and the others would have been spared. Your refusal to act is hurting more trees every day! Their spilled sap is on your hands!”
If Queen Forsythia heard her, she did not acknowledge it. She only stood there, her hazel eyes as still and cold as they always were.
“Wait, I’ve got something!” Yuvik whooped as he delicately read the pattern laid out.
Everyone leaned in expectantly.
“Yes, I can see the person who cursed this tree. He was here.”
“Well of course he was here!” Captain Tallia complained.
The Queen raised her hand, and Tallia fell silent. “So, it was a man?” she inferred.
“Yes, most definitely.”
“A Wysterian man?”
Yuvik took another bite of orange, the juices dripping down his chin. “Neddsa does not say.”
Everyone sighed in disappointment.
Suddenly Yuvik yelped excitedly. “Yes, yes, I see him very clearly.”
“Where is he?”
Yuvik looked up proudly. “He is here on the island somewhere.”
“Well, of course he’s on the island. How does that help us?”
Nikki dropped her face into her hands. “I never should have recommended them.”
“Oh, you are so useless!” Joron whooped, smacking his kin over the head.
“Don’t hit me! I’m only a beginner!”
“Another waste of time,” Captain Tallia snarled.
The Queen placed an appreciative hand on Yuvik’s hairy shoulder. “I thank you for trying. It was not fair of us to ask so much of you, but since Buleia is still part of the league, you were the only Scryer we had access to.”
Yuvik slurped down the rest of his orange. “Actually, I have an aunt who’s a grand master.”
Nikki looked up. “You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Ooh, we could send for her,” Joron suggested.
“Oh, but she is dreadfully afraid of flying.”
“That’ll make it hard to get her here,” Joron realized.
“…And she is frightfully allergic to Nallorn trees.”
“Even worse.”
“…And she hates Wysterians with a passion. She’d rather die than help you.”
Joron smacked him again. “Well then, why did you bring it up in the first place?!”
The Queen nodded and turned to leave with her guards. “I thank you for your time.”
As they walked away, Yuvik rubbed his sore noggin and looked at the bones one last time. “He also has a brand on his cheek.”
The Queen paused and turned around. “A brand, you say?”
Yuvik plucked a fresh orange off a nearby branch with his foot. “Yeah, the man who cursed this tree has a brand on his right cheek.”
“Can you see what symbol?”
Yuvik pointed at the scrolls staked into the tree. “Yeah, that one.”
All the Wysterians looked at each other excitedly.
“You brand your men?” Nikki asked, visibly disturbed.
“It is a frowned-upon practice, but it does occur,” the Queen said coldly. “This discovery is significant, thank you, Yuvik and Joron, you have performed a great service for the forest this day, and it shall not forget you.”
“Nothing a few bananas won’t cure,” Yuvik suggested.
“Don’t ask for that!” Joron said, smacking him again. “You’re perpetuating a stereotype.”
“What? I like bananas! I can’t like bananas now just because I’m Buleian?”
The Queen tapped her staff and a stalk grew up from the forest floor below, presenting them with a lush bushel of bananas. The pair hooted excitedly and began devouring them with an embarrassing vigor.
Nikki tried to shove aside her feelings about the branding. “So, how many Wysterian men on the island have that brand?”
Captain Tallia clenched her fist in anger. “Not many, a few hundred at most. That narrows our search down significantly.”
The Queen tapped her staff and spoke in her mother’s commanding voice. Nikki noted that it was a little hoarse. “Take every man bearing ii’ainta into custody immediately for questioning.”
All over the island, the women of Wysteria moved as one, laying their hands on every man branded with ii’ainta within seconds of the order being given.
The gathered Treesingers shot off in all directions, but Captain Tallia stayed behind. Queen Forsythia closed her eyes and focused her powers through the forest, her hands shaking.
As Nikki issued orders to her own naval security officers, Tallia approached her timidly.
“Um, may I speak with you?”
Nikki looked up. “Um, sure, I suppose. What is it?”
Captain Tallia tried to speak, but found herself looking away in shame. Without realizing it, she reached up and began massaging the stump of the arm she had lost during the invasion.
“I…ah…I was so sure that it was someone in the navy who was attacking the forest. I’m…ah, I just wanted to…um…I mean, the things I said…”
Isle of Wysteria: The Monolith Crumbles Page 24